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E-ZPass at 20: Expansion ahead

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Diane Serratore doesn't wear a foil hat and doesn't expect to be a fugitive from the law anytime soon. But she has a staunch aversion to E-ZPass, the electronic technology that has

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Diane Serratore doesn't wear a foil hat and doesn't expect to be a fugitive from the law anytime soon.

But she has a staunch aversion to E-ZPass, the electronic technology that has allowed millions of drivers to prepay tolls on roads, bridges and tunnels in 15 states. For Serratore, it's a matter of holding onto the final vestiges of her privacy.

"I just feel the government knows plenty about us," the Nyack, N.Y., resident said. "I don't think they need to know when I go across the Tappan Zee Bridge."

Serratore is among a minority of drivers who prefer to pay their tolls the old-fashioned way: in cash. Today, there are 14 million customers of the toll network, primarily in the Northeast.

E-ZPass recently turned 20 years old, and its small transponders affixed to windshields have made the ticket books and tokens that long served as the currency of commuters seem, for most people, as ancient as dial-up Internet access.

"I just hated the feeling of scrambling whenever you hit those tolls to make sure you had enough money," said James Murphy, who signed up for E-ZPass when it was introduced in 1993. He was a 24-year-old college student at the time, living in the Bronx and working part time in a bookstore.

He recalled keeping a cup of coins in his car for trips across the Tappan Zee Bridge to visit a mall in Rockland or down the Garden State Parkway to vacation on Jersey shore.

"I remember the first time I had E-ZPass and flying past all those people waiting in line" at the George Washington Bridge, said the Mahopac resident. "It actually felt good."

Last year, there were more than 2.4 billion E-ZPass transactions processed from the more than 25 million transponders in use. About 77 percent of all tolls in E-ZPass states are paid using the tags.

But some people continue to be drawn to the siren song of cash lanes.

There are a variety reasons for that, said P.J. Wilkins, executive director of the E-ZPass Interagency Group, which operates the toll network. Some people, particularly older folks, just aren't comfortable with the technology.

Others don't feel they use toll roads or bridges enough to justify creating an account, while another segment does not want to — or cannot — provide a bank account or credit card information.

And then there are people like Serratore, who may have smartphones with GPS that chip away at their privacy, but want to limit the amount of personal information they make available even if that means losing out on discounted tolls.

"They are people who just don't like to be tracked," Wilkins said.

Vehicles pass through the E-ZPass lanes at a toll plaza on the New York State Thruway in Yonkers.(Photo: Tania Savayan, The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News)

As an IT director, Ron Serao embraces technology and contends E-ZPass — which was tested at the New York State Thruway toll plaza in Spring Valley in the early 1990s — should be mandatory for all vehicles.

"Do you know how much traffic congestion could be relieved if everybody didn't have to stop at a toll booth?" said Serao, who lives in Stony Point.

Not having to stop to pay tolls also saves gas, cuts down on pollution and reduces the risk of crashes at toll booths, E-ZPass advocates contend.

"Why do something manually that proven electronic systems have the ability to do?" Serao said.

But E-ZPass users should be careful, warned Robert Sinclair, spokesman for the New York chapter of AAA.

"E-ZPass is probably the item we get the most complaints about from our members," Sinclair said.

Those include transponders that don't work, cars that are charged at higher truck rates and a non-responsive customer service system, he said.

AAA also has raised concerns that six E-ZPass agencies, including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, are charging higher tolls to drivers with E-ZPass accounts from some out-of-state agencies.

Measures to streamline tolling practices have taken on new urgency as all-electronic tolling may soon become ubiquitous.

Pennsylvania Turnpike officials last month said the 545-mile highway would be an all-electronic toll road by 2018, meaning drivers without E-ZPass would have pictures taken of their license plates and would be sent bills in the mail.

Wilkins said the plan is to expand E-ZPass, which has 25 member organizations, across the U.S. because Congress recently mandated toll interoperability on the nation's federally funded highways by 2016. That requires working with other regional tolling agencies and adjusting equipment "to find ways to hook the system all together," Wilkins said.

Each system, such as SunPass in Florida, shares the same radio frequency. But Wilkins said there are seven different types of communication protocols and they're not compatible.

That's slowly changing, which is why Florida will soon have the ability to read E-ZPass transponders, he said.

Over the years, the service has expanded to allow users to pay for parking at the New York City metropolitan area's three largest airports — John F. Kennedy International, La Guardia and Newark Liberty International airports — through the E-ZPass Plus program.

And little more than a decade ago, several McDonald's restaurants on Long Island allowed customers to pay for drive-thru purchases with their transponders. Wilkins said the pilot program was successful in cutting transaction time but the financial "back office process was not very compatible."

Companies routinely ask E-ZPass to partner with them because the tags can serve as a local payment technology, he said.